ANN ARBOR, Mich., Nov. 27, 2009 – Nearly everyone expected Ohio State to beat Michigan for a sixth straight season Saturday, lift Jim Tressel to 8-1 against the Wolverines, clinch an outright Big Ten title for the Rose Bowl-bound Buckeyes, keep Michigan out of a bowl for the second straight season and otherwise accentuate the opposite arcs defining the 106th game in this rivalry.

That happened in Ohio State's 21-10 victory at Michigan Stadium.

However, the Buckeyes really stuck it to the Wolverines by scoring their crucial final touchdown with the offense, the zone-read spread, that second-year Wolverines coach Rich Rodriguez brought with him to Michigan. It was run masterfully by Terrelle Pryor, the quarterback Rodriguez tried to recruit to operate his system.

The Buckeyes (10-2, 7-1 Big Ten) didn't just beat the Wolverines (5-7, 1-7), they beat them with their own playbook. Ironic?

“Crazy,” Pryor said.

Tressel's magical Michigan tour continued thanks in part to continued good fortune, the Buckeyes taking a 14-3 lead when Brandon Saine ran in from 29 yards out on a misdirection play.

The Buckeyes basically ran two plays at once because a student intern wrote the wrong information on a sideline board the players read from the field. The line ran one run play, and the receivers ran another.

“That was not the play we called,” Tressel said. “[The intern] called that.”

“I knew it . . . was just not lined up right,” Pryor said, “but it turned into a great play. Maybe we might use it again.”

Then the Buckeyes scored their final touchdown on a 12-yard screen pass from Pryor to Dan Herron as Tressel frantically tried to call timeout on third down, fearing the play wouldn’t get off in time.

“Thank goodness they didn’t see me,” Tressel said.

Michigan also handed Ohio State the Buckeyes’ first touchdown when quarterback Tate Forcier dropped the football while trying to scramble out of the end zone, and OSU defensive lineman Cameron Heyward fell on it less than five minutes into the game. Michigan also missed a 24-yard field goal. That’s a lot of luck.

There also was a vital and victorious adjustment. Michigan defensive end Brandon Graham, a potential first-round draft pick, caused problems early for the Ohio State offensive line in their blocking and their play calls — OSU guards Justin Boren and Bryant Browning both pulled and ran into each other on the game’s second play — as they tried to adjust to Graham’s movement. After running for at least 200 yards in four straight games, the Buckeyes gained just 22 yards on their first eight carries.

Then they began to work the zone-read. The Buckeyes had done much less of it the past few weeks as Pryor dealt with an ankle injury, but Saturday, those calls were exactly what were needed.

“I don’t know that we necessarily want to make that our lead,” Tressel said. “We’d rather power run and pass than make that our lead. But we also want you to have to stop that. But he’s very good at it.”

Pryor broke a 25-yard run on a zone-read, keeping the ball as the defensive end crashed into Brandon Saine, just before Saine’s 29-yard score. After Michigan pulled within 14-10 on a Forcier touchdown pass, the Buckeyes ran virtually only the zone-read on the ensuing 11-play, 89-yard touchdown drive.

“[Pryor] just kind of took over,” Tressel said. “Rather than us trying to guess calling the plays, we called read plays for him, and he decided who carried. That was a great drive.”

“It’s a hard play to stop,” said Pryor, who estimated the Buckeyes ran 25 zone-reads Saturday, more than in any game this season. “I was always good at running it. It just happened to be a play we found out they couldn’t stop.”

Some think that’s the offense that Pryor would run best, and the Buckeyes went to more of that in the fourth game of the year after early offensive struggles, especially on the offensive line. However, against Penn State and Iowa the previous two weeks, the Buckeyes had reverted back to more of a power I-formation team. So while the numbers were similar again Saturday — 303 yards on 53 carries — the approach changed again, many of the zone-reads coming out of formations from which the Buckeyes typically run the option wide.

“The guys did a good job running it, and Terrelle did a good job reading it,” OSU offensive coordinator Jim Bollman said. “Most of the time he was just giving the ball off, which is what he should have been. And that’s the way the thing is supposed to operate.”

By now, in the rivalry’s most dominant decade since Michigan went 9-0-1 from 1900 to 1909, this is how Ohio State players and fans think these games are supposed to go.

“I’m glad I’m on this side,” Pryor said. He’s not the only one. Win their own way, win Michigan’s way, win with a little luck or good defense or some in-game adjustments, once again against Michigan, the Buckeyes just won.